


Cinderik

by Erinaco



Category: Cinderella (2015), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cinderella Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Erik has a Hard Childhood, Erik is a Disney Princess, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinaco/pseuds/Erinaco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Cinderella story starring Erik as the princess. Yeehaw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cinderik

**Author's Note:**

> [A Disney's Cinderella 2015 AU]
> 
> I watched the new Cinderella movie a while ago and just couldn't resist the urge to try and explain some moments in a way that actually makes sense. Besides, Madden was wearing these tight pants that made the movie for me. Just what Charles would've looked like wearing those.

He acted without any more thinking, brushing a chaste kiss over soft red lips, and the outrageously blue eyes widened for a moment. And then Charles was crawling over to him, covering the short space between them, climbing onto his lap, slanting their mouths together.

Everything twisted and twirled in a blinding kaleidoscope.

Who’d have thought it would turn out to be the best day in Erik’s life.

x

“Hear thee! Hear thee! By the Royal Decree, all Gifted men and women of appropriate age are to come to the Royal Ball on the night of solstice–”

Erik grimaced, narrowing his eyes to see the herald reading the will of the King from the long parchment. The sun was right behind his back, trapping his silhouette inside a bright glowing aura. Some impressionable people might actually think that was a sign of divine blessing.

“–of all estates, regardless of ranks and titles–” the herald continued, slightly panting after each phrase and wiping off sweat rolling down his face.

For a moment, Erik felt compassion for the poor fellow. It was hot, spring warmth rapidly evolving into summer heat. The least Erik wanted to do now was being here, listening to the wailing that was sure to come after the news of the Royal ball settle in and carrying around this much damn purchases after Emma and her two idiots of sons. His arms hurt from the strain, baskets and packages hanged on him. He sighed, spotting the white dress flickering in the crowd ahead, right before the herald, and put some of the packages down to let his hands rest a while. It never quite reached him, Emma’s motives to prohibit him from using the Gift on public completely. Not when Erik was finally sure he had it under control.

“–where Prince Charles chooses his royal spouse!” the herald shouted the last phrase, rolling the scroll of parchment, and the hubbub immediately raised above the crowd.

The white dress vanished from sight and reappeared before Erik a moment later. Emma was glowing, adamant determination carved into her slim figure.

“Oh, what good news! Well, one of my boys will lay their hands on Prince Charles, make no mistake,” she smiled brightly showing her white teeth. “Now come on! There’re preparations waiting for us! Oh right, let’s visit the tailor first–”

x

The door wouldn’t yield an inch, made of solid oak and not a hinge of metal, not in all his room. That damn witch!

Erik gritted his teeth, leaning onto the door. His shoulder hurt from when he tried to batter it open. He could almost hear conversation from below, strained and uncomfortable. “Do you have anyone else in this house? Someone this could belong to?”

Erik smiled bitterly. He couldn’t believe Charles actually did it, actually sent his adjutant with Erik’s boot wandering around the country for sakes of finding him. It was definitely a good thing he didn’t forget anything more personal back at the castle.

He closed his eyes, memories washing through him in a hot wave. Charles’s soft smile, warm lips, stuttered breaths as Erik pressed him closer, kissing and biting the loveable pale neck.

He probably should say ‘goodbye’ to those memories right now.

Charles in his memories opened the dizzied blue eyes, embracing him by the shoulders, tilting his head back, welcoming him.

“Erik–”

He slammed a fist into the door.

Heck no. He’s not going to sit around and wait for help to come. He’ll tear his life off Emma’s grip with his teeth if necessary.

x

He stopped on the edge of a small forest clearing, wiping his forehead wearily.

Preparations for the ball wriggled all strength out of him. Emma always had him work to half-death but the last couple of weeks turned into a continuous nightmare with no time to stretch his back. He could feel her impatience crushing the barriers he was building so carefully around his mind. Going into the woods to fetch some brushwood was a stupid excuse but he was feeling too wrung out to think of anything better. At least, she didn’t have that much of a range to reach him out there.

The sky was slowly lightening. Erik stepped onto the clearing, heaped the brushwood into a pile and flumped on the green grass moist from early dew. The morning was still young, pale pinks and yellows painting the clouds over his head. Erik leaned onto the wood, throwing his hands back. Seeing as he didn’t get enough sleep for a week already, slumber imbued him the moment he closed his eyes. It was calm and peaceful here, with only birds chirping high in the tree crowns and soft rustling of the wind filling the silence around.

The hunting horn came slicing through the morning serenity, making Erik jump from where his was lying on the pile of brushwood. It was nothing strange at this hour and regarding the proximity of the royal grounds but damn out of season it was. Erik perched up on his elbows. The sounds of hunt came nearer and then distanced again, and he leaned back when the branches rustled right in front of him, and someone stepped onto the clearing, leading his horse by the bridle.

Erik was lost and gone, he knew it the moment he caught sight of a slender silhouette clad in blue uniform, high lacquered boots and white pants so shockingly tight they didn’t hide any of that marvelously defined flesh. Apparently some screw flew loose in his head. He stared, thinking of slipping a hand under the jacket with neat row of buttons, running a palm over the chest probably as smooth and gorgeous as the rest of him. The urge to touch all that pale skin, to caress soft neck, to have the unruly brown curls flowing through his fingers was barely resistible.

“Well hello,” the stranger said, light surprise on his face. “Who’re you?”

Erik shook off his reverie but kept staring back, voiceless. He was sure that, would he open his mouth, something inappropriate would come out of it. Something like I-want-to-lick-you-all-over-right-now.

“Oh, I’m Charles,” the stranger smiled, and Erik tried to swallow a hot lump stuck in his throat. “Sorry, I had to introduce myself at once– it’s just strange I didn’t hear you,” he mused, soft chuckle forming on his lips. “You see, I am a telepath and not used to being unable hearing anyone’s presence so near me.”

“A telepath,” Erik echoed, the word instantly heavy and thick in his mind.

A telepath. In front of him, who was thinking about tearing off that fine clothes and running his hands all over his body– Should he even be introducing himself like that to a random stranger he just met?

“It’s really odd, your thoughts are like background noise. I hear them muttering in my head but nothing specific I could’ve made out,” Charles tilted his head eyeing Erik inquiringly as if expecting for an answer. “You have mental barriers set, right? You must have some mind-controlling Gift, as well, my friend.”

Erik startled for a moment. “No, actually–” Oh huh. He thought Erik was a telepath just like himself, did he not. “I am not a telepath but I know one,” he said meditatively, his thoughts switching to possibilities. Could it be, such luck swimming right into his hands? “I believe I’ve learned to shield from her.”

“I have someone who shields me off, too,” Charles said, small shadow falling over his face.

An awkward pause filled the space between them. Erik was aware he was staring, as well as Charles staring back, confused of what to do next, either leaving or joining the unexpected company until Erik smirked at their mutual uneasiness, and that broke the ice. Charles’s smile was perfect, lighting up his face and crinkling around the eyes. Erik opened his mouth just as Charles’s face twitched. He glanced back, his shoulders getting tense.

Next moment, Erik heard it too – the shouts came from behind Charles’s back, clearly searching and concerned. They were accompanied with loud rustling; something big was clearly forcing its way through the thicket.

“Oh– I have to go now–” Charles muttered, a glimpse of guilt flashing on his face.

“Er, wait!” Erik blurted before he could stop himself. He could not let the opportunity slip through his fingers. Not when it was this close. “Can you block Gifts–?”

Charles stared back at him silently, perplexed furrow between his brows, the why written over his face in large letters. He asked nothing though.

“I need to go,” he finally whispered, casting another wary glance over his shoulder. “In a week, there's a Royal ball– Come. I’ll find you there.”

Erik watched Charles’s back disappearing among the greenery of the wood. The ball, huh. That wouldn’t work for sure.

x

Erik slammed the door behind him and leaned to it, hands clenched into fists, knuckles white with rage.

Cinderik this! Cinderik that!

He winced; there should probably be gratitude somewhere in him as Emma suggested. Instead, fury sizzled in his chest, just about ready to explode. They actually called him Cinderik, for heaven’s sake, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He hated it all.

x

He lost mother when he was fourteen, age young and tender, and father remarried to the widow with two sons. “The boys are Gifted, just like you. You’ll finally have company to play with,” he used to say, seeing wet sorrow gathering in the corners of Erik’s eyes. “And you’ll have a mother again. Don’t you think it’s what you and I both need?”

Erik didn’t but he also thought of father’s shining face when he was talking about his to-be-wife, intelligent, and aristocratic, and so very beautiful. He couldn’t dare wresting father out of his dreams. He just didn’t like it, a grim anticipation of something going terribly wrong looming over him at days preceding the wedding.

He was convinced of the rightness of this feeling when he first saw them, wearing white, gray and black, the gloomy palette he learned they never changed. Both Azazel and Janos stared up at him, enmity settling in midair between them and Erik. That first glance, he already knew they’d never become friends. But with Emma (“Call me mother, Erik”), it was completely different. She was benevolent, and graceful, and fake inside out. It made Erik feel nauseous, which he wouldn’t mind demonstrating if not for father holding hand on his shoulder, standing just behind him with the happy smile cracking his face in two.

“My family,” he said, tenderness curling in his voice.

Emma smiled, and it was fake, too. Erik would know as he saw the look she gave him behind father’s back, the knowing icy look as if she could read his mind.

And she could. That very night, Erik learned his new mother’s Gift when she visited him in his room.

I know, she murmured to him, pinned to the wall with her power, unable to move a muscle, horror flowing down his spine in cold sweat when he realized her lips were not moving. You’ll never take me as your mother. But it’s okay, I have my boys to love me. You– don’t interfere. Your father doesn’t belong to you alone anymore.

She grinned predatorily, leaving his room and releasing her mental grip on him. His knees buckled and he slid down the wall, shaking.

He would learn to raise his barriers to her fiercest attacks in time, resorting to his Gift as a consolation. He would train it in attempt to someday break free from Emma’s grip. He would lose his father to his careless handling of his Gift, still too weak to rein it, and it would be Emma who comforted him and gave some hope, or so she wanted him to think. I can restrain your Gift, she’d say. I can hold it in leash if you’d let me in. He would never learn to shield off completely, depriving himself from feeling metal to secure people around. He would never learn to be grateful. And that would lead him to the position of a mere servant in his own house.

x

The three of them finally left for the ball, and Erik sighed with relief; finally some time alone with no bossing around. But life seemed to know better than letting him have some freedom.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Sebastian’s smile wilted. He frowned, pushing Erik with his shoulder and stepping over the threshold. “Not cute. Come on, is that a way to greet your long-awaited godfather? It’s not like I’m some vagrant you can treat with that grim of a face.”

Erik crossed his arms, staring at the guest sullenly. Sebastian Shaw, his father’s best friend – only friend, he thought – and Erik’s godfather, who just happened to be the powerful Gifted that was spending his talent on some petty entertainments fooling people. The last time Erik saw him, his father was still alive. He never visited the funeral though, not a single word from him since. Now, he was standing in the middle of the room as if the last ten years didn’t happen, wearing a stupid long cloak (what happened to the man’s taste?) and the most irritating grin.

“I know who you are. And I want you out.”

Sebastian collapsed in a chair near the fire melodramatically, covering his face with his hands. “What an unkind man you’ve grown,” he moaned in dry sobs. “I remember you sitting on my lap, such an obedient child.”

“What do you want, Shaw,” Erik asked wearily. He had neither time nor desire participating in the obligatory circus Sebastian was clearly a big fan of.

“I heard you were in trouble,” Sebastian looked at him through his fingers. “Was I informed wrong?”

Erik gritted his teeth to keep the ‘you are ten years late’ inside him. Instead, he bent to the fireplace, stirring the coals with sooty poker. The heat raised from it, covering Erik in a soft blanket. He liked this warmth; it was familiar. He often fell asleep beside this fireplace, almost lying in the ashes slowly cooling off to keep himself warm at cold nights. That was what earned him the Cinderik name he got from quick-tongued Azazel. He hated the bastard.

“So, you don’t want to talk. I’ll cut to the chase then,” Sebastian lounged in a chair, stretching long scraggy legs to the fire revived by Erik’s efforts. “You should go.”

“Go where?” Erik frowned, sincerely perplexed. That was a habit his father often complained about Shaw: he thought people around him should know what was on his mind so he didn’t need to finish his sentences.

“The ball, of course. Isn’t there one in the nearest castle?”

“I don’t see any reason for it.”

“Why, don’t you want to?”

A lightning-fast thought of blue eyes and pale skin swept through him. Come to the ball, he said; Erik shrugged, stuffing it to the back of his mind. The times of him being naïve and romantic passed before even starting. After Emma pinned him down to the wall in his room, demonstrating who the master in the house was. After he didn’t restrain his Gift and killed his own father. After he was made a servant in this house with no say in his life. Now, he knew exactly what to expect from life, and didn’t need to nurture any false hopes.

“I still have work to do.”

“What work?” Sebastian smirked. “Separate the wheat from the chaff? Plant rosebushes? You can’t be serious. You should go and air your head.”

Erik sighed.

“If you insist. Not like I can though,” he added malevolently, his irritation a bit satisfied as Sebastian’s face turned sour. “I don’t have anything necessary for the ball, neither a carriage nor an appropriate attire.”

Shaw’s grin widened. “Not a problem. About the carriage, take mine.” He caught Erik by the sleeve, dragging him outside. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

It was a pile of corroded metal. One day, it must have been intricate metalwork and fine carving, but now–

“It looks like a big old and rusty pumpkin,” Erik snapped, yanking his elbow off Sebastian’s grip. Did Shaw expect this could go as far as the castle gates?

“Shouldn’t you be less picky in your situation?”

“You’re annoying,” Erik retorted. “Besides, what about clothes? Or you suggest me going to the ball wearing these rags?”

Sebastian’s grin turned victorious. Erik narrowed his eyes suspiciously, somehow sure he thought about that one, too. “I did bring you a present, didn’t I,” Shaw grinned complacently, pulling a package somewhere from under his cloak. “Here, why don’t you try it on?”

Erik unwrapped the package and stared at the suit in awe. It was actually a nice one, expensive silky fabric, good cut, high collar that made it look similar to military uniform. And it suited his tastes, all straight lines and no decorative excesses. Simple and elegant.

Who would’ve thought Sebastian actually brought him something useful.

“You had it made for me?” Erik asked in disbelief, never remembering such generosity after his godfather.

“Er– not exactly. I ordered it for me but my tailor messed up a bit, shoulders too broad and waist too narrow–” he faltered for a moment, something close to confusion on his face. “So anyway, I thought why not bring it to my precious godson. Didn't I guess correct with the size!”

His face shone with a genuine smile; Erik felt sarcastic but not entirely irritated twitch in the corner of his mouth. Generosity it was.

x

The windowsill crackled under his weight, too old to be relied on it blindly. Erik’s grip tightened on the wooden window frame; he cursed himself for never caring enough to repair it. This would be the end of the story, Emma the winner, if it snapped under his feet before he reached the decorative cornice two floors below.

He plastered to the wall, pressing into it with all he had, sensing for any metal around. There was something, just outside of his reach; Erik stretched his Gift further, trying to grab it.

Trampled in the dirt, the rusty nail that must have fallen out of some horseshoe shuddered in its earthy nest.

Chances one out of ten, he thought when the moldered plank gave way under his left foot.

Oh, he thought when everything plunged into darkness.

x

“The ball? Really, Erik?” Emma’s face became all long and shocked before turning into scornful amusement. “Of course you’re not going.”

There was no point arguing, Erik knew perfectly well, thank you and go to hell. Yet something burned in his chest, scorching and powerful, unable to be kept inside.

“You’ve blocked my Gift,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I can do no harm–”

He knew the moment he said it, the answer would still be ‘no’ because Emma was well aware of his small practicing over her shields. You don’t fool me, Erik, she projected, lips tightly pursed, pressing the words into his mind. You’re not going.

x

The garden was lit in moonlight, trees and well-groomed bushes silvery, an eerie feeling to them. Erik sat down on some random marble bench and shivered, cold seeping under his skin from the night air.

How could he be sure Charles would find him with this many people in the castle? How could he know he even was here in the first place?

The stars were small and sharp, outshined by the bright light coming through the open doors of the ballroom. Erik glanced there shortly, considering if he should go inside and search for Charles when the voice came from behind his back. “Would you care to dance?”

Erik turned around, staring at Charles. His smile was genuine and dazzling, white sparkles in his eyes. Somehow it was even better than what Erik remembered. “Dance? Now? Here?”

“This is the ball,” Charles waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the ballroom, where a soft waltz started. “Why miss the opportunity.”

There was something wrong that bothered Erik enough to tear him away from thinking of how beautiful Charles was right now, hair silver under the moonlight, shadows making all his figure impossibly thin, and how he would feel wrapped in Erik’s arms. Charles was wearing royal uniform, white and red, golden aiguillettes splendid and pompous, marking the high rank. A bit too high for someone of his age.

“Who are you?”

“The Prince,” Charles said simply, smile still on his lips but a small furrow on his forehead cracking the cheerful face.

Erik shrugged the surprise off himself and looked away. “You should’ve said so.” Weariness that was relieved shortly when Charles found him settled back again.

“Does it matter, my friend?” Charles’s hand was warm on Erik’s shoulder. He shivered, nippiness of the night having nothing to do with it. “Come, it’s getting cold. I believe you had something to talk to me about.”

x

He gasped for air, remembering how to make a breath. His head burst with pain as soon as he tried to lift it off the ground, up and down mixed, everything turned into colors floating around him.

Erik groaned, waiting a while before trying to rise on his elbows again. There was no time lying around, not if he wanted to catch up with–

“You shouldn’t be moving,” the voice came from the outside, warm hand pushing him back. Small familiar chuckle vibrated through the body. “You scared me. Truly, it is hardest to find something put before your eyes.”

Erik blinked at the silhouette hovering above him, someone with unruly hair and brightest blue eyes.

I must be dead and in heaven, he thought, relaxing into warm embrace of Charles’s mind.

x

Charles had him seated in a deep armchair near the fireplace and shoved a glass in his hands, dark thick liquid swaying in it. Some wine to warm up.

“What is your Gift, exactly?”

Erik frowned. He’d thought Charles would go asking him about the reasons he wanted to block it; instead, it looked like the telepath let it go. “Metalbending,” he said, taking a sip from the glass. The wine wrapped him in warmth immediately, or maybe it was due to the fire crackling in the fireplace cozily that he felt more at ease now.

“Oh,” Charles smiled. “I would have liked seeing it.”

“It’s out of control,” Erik said choosing his wording carefully.

“Mm– Would you allow me?” Charles made some weird gesture, twisting his wrist near his temple. The message was clear, and Erik nodded. In any case, he was the one who came up to ask for Charles’s help, why deny him peeking in his head now?

It flooded him, memories he long promised to forget. Mother’s smiling face, burning candles casting warm patches of light on her face. Father’s hand tender on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. Erik, you did it. You are Gifted. Mother, pale and thin on white sheets. I’m so proud, Erik. Father, crushed under crumpled, battered heap of metal. Erik, what did you do– I can hold it in leash if you’d let me in. Erik–

“Erik!”

He snapped out of the memory, panting, tears hot in the corners of his eyes. His hand was on Charles’s, clenching it tightly, nearly crushing thin fingers. He forced himself to let go, but Charles didn’t seem to notice. “There’s something,” his voice was tense. “Something blocked. I can try breaking through it–”

“Don’t,” Erik wiped his face with the back of his hand. “That should be there, it restrains the Gift.”

Charles shook his head. “No, it’s different, nothing to do with the Gift. Come on, again.”

Mother’s smiling face. Father’s hand. Candles. Pile of metal. What did you do, Erik.

Bright flash in front of him. Emma, smiling with father’s hand around her waist. Don’t interfere. He slides down the wall, knees trembling weakly. Father in his bed, white as sheet. Dead. Not a scratch on him. No crumpled metal around, Emma standing behind crying Erik, her hand warm on his shoulders. What did you do–

He inhaled sharply, coming back to his senses. The room was humming with small metal objects, trembling, none of them touching any surfaces. Erik took out an inkwell out of air and twisted it in his fingers.

“Spectacular,” Charles smiled wearily, his voice a bit shaky. “For you, it must all have been in a haze.”

Erik looked at him with lusterless eyes and grimaced, still not over the fact he was fooled by Emma all these years. His father died of an illness. He was never guilty in his death. How wouldn’t he notice the obvious inconsistencies in the memories she made up for him? It’s no wonder, Charles whispered in his head. Her Gift is strong.

Metal buzzed in appreciation. Erik lowered everything down softly, feeling empty and free at the same time.

x

“So it was you,” Emma said. She was smiling, and that would be terrifying if not for anger that shook through Erik. “And you’ve broken the block– Heavens, why do I have this much hassle with you?”

She caught his thought about attacking her even before he could reach for anything. He raised his barriers mechanically but she broke through them with ease that scared him.

“Prince searches the kingdom for a stranger he acquainted at the ball,” Emma murmured, shackling him with her will. “Until the searches stop, you’ll be locked in your room. Think of it as punishment for disobeying me. Go!”

Erik walked upstairs on stiff legs, struggling through the cotton density of Emma’s order. He already knew it was a lost battle.

x

He lost track of time, sitting near Charles, their knees close, bumping together, relaxing warmth spreading from the touch. The telepath rapidly recovered from the exertion and he was going on about the beauty of the Gifts.

“So that’s why all Gifted were invited to the ball. What’s the nonsense with you choosing a spouse?”

Charles frowned. “That was not my idea. I’m going to be King in a year and a half, and I should be married by then.”

“Shouldn’t you be at the ball, with the guests then?”

“Oh. Right, my sister does it. She’s a shapeshifter,” Charles chuckled at Erik’s confused face. “I had some other business to attend.”

“Did you,” Erik said never tearing his eyes off Charles’s.

A tinge of tenderness was bittersweet on his tongue. Erik held out his hand, brushing fingertips over Charles’s cheek, lingering just a bit at the corner of his lips. He knew his hand should feel calloused from hard daily work; Charles’s eyes widened for a short moment, shocking audacity, and then he chased after Erik’s palm, catching it with both hands and snuggling his soft, smooth cheek into it.

He chuckled quietly, the sound vibrating over Erik’s skin, and Erik pulled him closer, watching firelight dancing warmly on his face. The kiss was cautious and sweet, tasting each other. Charles parted his lips, and Erik drew him closer, the warmth of his body creeping under Erik’s skin.

“Should a prince be aware of such things?” Erik asked quietly as Charles settled on his lap, straddling his hips deftly.

Shut up, the answer came right in his head, followed by an irritated nip at Erik’s lip. I’m no tender flower.

Erik grinned, unable to keep amusement off his face, and pressed a kiss to the pale neck, making Charles quiver, shudders shaking through his body. His waist was trim, all figure cut slim and unbearably fragile in Erik’s embrace. He squeezed the finely shaped hip through the fabric of the tight white trousers, insatiable yearning of more gripping his throat.

Erik claimed his lips again, and again, and again until both of them started suffocating, short on air but still unable to let go of each other. And then Charles moaned quietly into his mouth, and Erik lost the remains of self-control.

They jerked frantically at each other’s clothes, hunger boiling in them, fiddled with ties on their belts, kicked off the boots. Erik tugged at Charles’s jacket, pushing it down his shoulders and pulling a shirt up and over his head. He stared at the expanse of bare skin, smooth and tender just as he expected it to be, finally getting his hands on that chest. Charles knew exactly what to do, hast and impatient, soft warm pressure at Erik’s limbs. The skin under his touch was mesmerizing, so soft and silky his fingers couldn’t stop tracing every curve of that body over and over again. Red lips opened, a quiet sigh escaping them, sending shivers down Erik’s spine.

Charles pushed at Erik’s shoulders roughly, biting the lips without a sound, tilting his head back. Erik watched, spellbound by the beautiful throat before his eyes, the long curve perfectly kissable and bitable, as if created for Erik to leave marks of his teeth on it. Charles whimpered when he did and attacked his lips, muffling the moans into Erik’s mouth.

Erik felt small metal objects vibrating throughout the room, humming contentedly within his reach, floating in the air. Stop, Charles asked in his head, gasping and panting heavily, pressing his fingers into Erik’s shoulders, trembling ecstasy enveloping his mind. That–

Erik pushed up and forward, and he flinched, his voice losing coherence in Erik’s mind. Best day of my life, he thought to Charles, and was rewarded by him arching, biting at his lips, a long raw moan finally finding its way through clenched teeth.

x

He woke up in near darkness, fire almost out with soft crackling and red tired sparkles barely there to give away the last of their heat. Something bothered him out of his slumber, a small meddlesome thought on the edge of conscience.

Time to leave. Now, he had to deal with Emma, and he would need the element of surprise to get his hands on her.

Erik sighed, watching Charles sleeping soundly in his arms. Tempting; the thought of leaving him here was almost unbearable. He pressed a gentle kiss to his temple and another one to his lips, swollen and red after he tormented them only a while ago. The memory settled cozily in Erik’s mind, making a fond smile curl in the corners of his lips.

x

“You should be home by twelve,” Sebastian warned, wagging his finger at Erik. “Before Emma and the boys come home. It would be difficult to explain why you’re absent, and I’m here in your place. The woman just doesn’t like me–”

Something for us to agree, Erik thought but said nothing, impatient to urge the horse.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Sebastian caught his shoulder at the last moment, “Where’s the bar? I feel like a glass of something burning.”

x

Erik picked up his shirt and jacket, crumpled in a messed-up pile and looked around, searching for the other boot when the clock chimed its first stroke.

He swore in a low voice. There was no time looking for that damn boot, wherever it was.

x

“I know a telepath when I see one,” Emma snarled, turning diamond and sparkly. “It won’t be that easy getting to me.”

They managed to deal with Janos and Azazel before they got to Emma, and it was lucky. Now, threatened with a telepath on one hand and a metalbender on the other, she was cornered and had to resolve to her last chance.

Erik focused, still a bit off dealing with metal but sure this would work out. The snakes of fire iron slid to Emma, wrapping themselves around her wrists and dragging her to the wall, pinning there, splayed widely. Erik grinned darkly, remembering how she had him pinned similarly. He wanted her knees buckling, too.

The metal buzzed obediently, and tightened around her throat until it cracked. Erik only saw fear growing in her eyes, red haze covering everything else, eaving them alone in the whole world.

Charles’s voice came in when Erik was ready to crash that diamond completely.

“Erik! Calm down. That’s enough,” he looked at Emma with bright stern eyes. She swallowed with difficulty and turned to flesh and blood, pale and shaking. “She will be exiled from the kingdom remembering that there is someone to take her down if she ever decides to come back.”

She sank to her knees at once as soon as Erik loosened the metal grip on her. Charles smiled at him and there were twinkles in his gaze. “Come. There’s still a wedding to prepare to,” he took Erik by the elbow, turning his back to Emma carelessly.

“A wedding?”

“That was the royal promise I made when I started the search for you, so you should take responsibility,” Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Besides, having a powerful Gifted beside me would play into the hands for the kingdom.”

“Aren’t you pragmatic,” Erik smirked, casting a sidelong glance at him.

“That’s only one of my flaws. You’ll come to know more soon.”

“I have a feeling I’ll love them all,” Erik whispered under his nose as Charles let go of his arm to climb a horse. “Well, probably not the one where you rummage in my head.”

Charles laughed knowingly, and there was nothing left but to follow him, high sun tangled in his unruly hair and sparkling in unlawfully blue eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought it was a shame Charles always gets the role of a princess. Why Erik shouldn't?  
> Also, it was fun making up Erik's nickname.
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading, hope you had as much fun as I did writing this.


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